


The Hunter Games

by cotangent_brothers



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hunger Games Setting, Castiel and Dean Winchester Have a Profound Bond, Dead Mary Winchester, Hunger Games-Typical Death/Violence, John Winchester Has Issues, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, M/M, Protective Dean Winchester, Star-crossed
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-22
Updated: 2016-08-22
Packaged: 2018-08-10 11:29:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7843189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cotangent_brothers/pseuds/cotangent_brothers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Destiel Hunger Games AU. That’s right. I’m talking bloodbaths, Dean going into kill mode in the arena, star-crossed lovers…the whole nine.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Hunter Games

**Author's Note:**

> This is not a retelling of The Hunger Games. This fic assumes you have read the books/watched the movies (and watched Supernatural of course.) I haven’t gone into detail with world-building explanations - I explain enough for you to see the parallels, but the focus of this story is Destiel. I highly recommend reading The Hunger Games in general if you have not already, but especially if you plan to read this fic (spoilers are inevitable otherwise.)
> 
> This is going to be a WIP with me aiming to post a chapter every week or couple of weeks, depending on what reality holds for me. 
> 
> P.S. Before you all jump on me, I know there is already an episode with the name "The Hunter Games." But how could I not? :3

_Sam._

Dean’s fingers closed around the kitchen knife he kept under his pillow, eyes flying open. Sam. They were coming for him, they were gonna hurt him, take him away—

In the moment it took for Dean’s eyes to adjust to the soft light streaming into his room, his heart rate slowed and he relaxed against the thin mattress. No, Sammy was fine. No one was going to touch his little brother, not while he was around. Dean released the knife – it was too risky to keep his gun in his home, where the Halos could storm in at any minute and tear apart – and sat up slowly.

The sun was just lightening the curtains, and the glow spilled onto the empty cot next to Dean. The blanket on it was neatly folded and the pillow was hard from disuse. No one had slept there last night, apparently.

So where was Sam?

Dean rolled out of bed, already fully dressed down to his boots, and grabbed his leather jacket off the back of his chair as he slipped out of the room. As he crossed the hallway, he glanced into the master bedroom and felt his face soften.

There he was. Sam. He lay curled in on his side which was an unusual position for him. He was usually sprawled out, his long body taking up the entire cot and then some. But this was the form of vulnerability. Fear. He only slept in their father’s room – on their mother’s side of the bed – on these kinds of days.

Their father was nowhere to be found, of course.

Tucked up against Sam was a fleabag mutt named Riot. It was a funny story, how they’d gotten him. And by funny, Dean meant fucking horrible.

They’d been walking home one afternoon and had stumbled upon the dog, crying and bleeding from a gunshot wound in one of its legs. A Halo must have shot it – to kill it? For fun? Who knew with those bastards? They were supposed to be the “peacekeepers” of the districts, but sadistic robots with weapons was a more accurate description. Anyway, Sam had insisted, pleaded even with Dean to let them take the dog home, fix it up. And Dean had looked from one pair of puppy dog eyes to another and gave in. What was one more mouth to feed, anyway?

Satisfied that his brother was safe and sound – well, relatively speaking – Dean drew away to the kitchen, grabbing the container of nuts from the almost bare pantry and shoving them in his pocket before leaving the house.

He glanced back at his house as he made his way down the rundown street, his silhouette pink from the lethargic sunrise. It was one of the nicer houses, he figured – which basically meant that they had water and electricity every now and then. This was because his father, John, and now his brother too both had jobs working in the Archives. The Winchester family had historically been part of the small archivist class that served as record keepers for the Capitol. In other words, they were charged with the systematic destruction and rewriting of old documents. History was written by the winners, and all that crap. It was a coveted position, and sometimes Dean regretted his decision to turn down the Archives in favor of factory work. But it was only when he was working with the machines that he felt closest to his mother.

Dean felt his body stiffen with grief and long-simmering rage as he made his way to town. His mother, Mary Winchester, had burned to death in a factory fire. Dean’s district, District 12, had once been a city – Lawrence, part of the state of Kansas. Now it was just known as the farming and agricultural export district of Paradise – the country’s current name. All the fields and farms were squeezed dry of their products, and the fat of the land went almost exclusively to the Capitol – the capital city of what was left of the country. It had once been Washington, D.C., according to the history textbooks. Dean didn’t really care. All that mattered was keeping the remaining members of his family alive. That’s why he only let Sam enter his name the bare minimum amount needed for the reaping. Of course, Dean entered his own name three extra times for the extra food that came with it, but he would cut off his hands before he wrote Sam’s name down more than strictly necessary.

As he approached the town, he veered left away from the plaza and the markets and instead headed into the shadier, grimier sector informally known as the Hob. It was a black market of sorts, but the Halos never shut it down because even they were starved for underworld goods like illegally hunted meats and smuggled narcotics. Dean passed a couple of the peacekeepers on his way and stared straight ahead, never making eye contact. It was only when he reached the roadhouse that he felt his shoulders loosen. If ever there were people he cared about outside Sam and his father, they were in here. He went in through the back – the roadhouse wasn’t open yet but the owner, Ellen Harvelle, knew to expect him – and closed the door behind him, letting the soft hum of the radio further soothe his nerves. The Harvelles did well enough with the dirty money they earned to afford a radio.

The place was empty, the chairs still stacked on the tables, but Ellen was already up and wiping down the bar with a rag.

“Bob Seger?” Dean said as he placed the song floating around him.

She tossed him a smile. “Good ear. Seger was one of the greats. Never forsake your heritage, boy. It’s all that ties us to the past.”

“Yes ma’am.” His gaze drifted to the staircase leading to the second floor, which Ellen’s sharp eyes didn’t miss.

“Well, go on,” she nodded. “She’s waiting.” The dismissal was enough for Dean and he scaled the stairs, never pausing as he ducked out of the window and climbed onto the roof.

There, framed by hazy early morning light, was Jo. Her blond hair was loose and almost hid her scowl that melted into something warmer the second she spotted Dean. She looked younger in that moment, almost her actual age of twenty-four. Dean was twenty-six, but most days the circles under his eyes and creases between his brows made him feel forty.

“Tell me you brought something to go with this,” she said as she reached behind her for the six pack of beer. In response, Dean pulled out the container of nuts from within his pocket and tossed them at her as he settled down beside her.

“Let’s get wasted,” he suggested, accepting a beer can and a handful of peanuts.

Jo grinned around a full mouth. “We’d need some harder stuff, and mom keeps that locked up.”

“C’mon. Who here doesn’t know how to pick a lock?” He nudged her shoulder. “I’ll distract Ellen, maybe play dead or something – which should be easy since I’m dead inside anyway – and you sneak into the back and grab the goods.”

“ _Oh_ okay,” Jo nodded sarcastically and Dean chuckled, both of them sinking into comfortable silence as they watched the sky lighten. It was a good ten minutes later when she finally spoke again, but now her voice had a somber timbre to it. “Let’s run away.”

Dean snorted. “Yeah.”

“I’m serious.” At that, he glanced over at her and was met with earnestness. “Dean, we could do it. Just give the Halos and the Host the middle finger and disappear. We’d be free.”

“Yeah, until Ellen finds me and skins me.”

Jo laughed. “You’re afraid of my mother?”

He pictured Ellen’s stern, take-no-bullshit face. “I think so.” Besides, who would take care of Sammy if Dean left? Definitely not their dad.

There’d been a time when John had been a father. But that part of him died with Mary, and what was left wasn’t much more than an empty husk. Dean understood and didn’t blame him, but Sam…not so much.

“You won’t even consider it?” Jo prodded, pulling him out of his thoughts.

Dean stared at her. “What about your brother, Ash? He and Ellen need you. And I can’t leave Sam.”

“We’d bring them with us.” He ran a hand over his face and let his mind pour over this new and dangerous alternate reality. Dean actually did stand a better chance of survival as a fugitive than most people did. And what gave him this edge was the simple fact that he could fight. He had a secret stash of weapons, handed down to him by the generations of fighters and rebels before him, and his mother had taught him to properly discharge the firearms and wield the blades. The Campbells. His mother’s side of the family. They were the stuff of soldiers, heroes. Jo’s family was the same, all of them intimately familiar with survival.  

For the briefest second, he saw a future with her, the same one she was imagining where they were both alive and well and without a care in the world. No more starving, no more fear or humiliation or worry. Just peace.

But Dean didn’t want peace. He wanted freedom, and just being beyond the barbed wire fences and search lights didn’t make him free. Sometimes he wanted it so badly he felt like he was suffocating.

“Well,” he cleared his throat, “bottom line is, my dad wouldn’t make it a day in the wild – unless you find a river made of whiskey or rum.”

“No problem. All we need is a tornado and a dog named Toto. We’re already in Kansas.” Jo smiled when Dean cracked a grin, but her eyes were full of sympathy – which soured his amusement. “He’s downstairs, you know,” she said gently. “Mom and Ash helped him into the bed in the spare room.”

“Thanks,” he said briskly. Of course his dad had landed up here. Not only was he a mess, he had to be one publically. “You know what, I should probably take him home. Get him cleaned up and all that crap.”

“Dean—”

“I’ll see you at the reaping, okay?” he offered her a smile as he slunk off the roof and back inside the roadhouse. His last image of Jo was of her staring after him with her fingers gripping the beer can so tightly it almost crumpled.

The Harvelles lived on the second floor above the bar, and inside the spare room, just as Jo had said, was John Winchester. He was sprawled on the bed with a bottle still clutched to his chest, and he was snoring with gusto. Dean took a moment to collect himself before heading over to collect his father.

“Dad.” His voice was gruff as he shook him. It hurt to see his father like this – so far past rock bottom, he didn’t know which way was up and down. “Wake up.”

The snoring cut off abruptly and John’s bloodshot eyes blearily opened. “Dean?” he rasped. “Dean?”

“Yeah, dad. It’s me.” Dean pried the bottle out of John’s grip and helped him to his feet. “C’mon, we’re going home.”

“Son, I don’t…”

Dean paused in towing his father to the door. “Yes?”

“I don’t want to go home.” John reeked of liquor and his words slurred. “She won’t be there.”

Another stab in the chest. “Yeah, well, you know who will be there?”

John’s eyes rolled toward him. “Who?”

“Sam. He’s waiting for you. So for his sake, you’re going to haul yourself back to the house and get ready for the reaping, understand?” If John had been sober, Dean never would have spoken to him like this, but now his father just nodded pathetically and shuffled out of the room with Dean’s help.

It was going to be a long walk.

 

Sam was up by the time they got back. Dean passed him in the bathroom, trying to do his tie in the dirty mirror, and it almost brought a smile to Dean’s face. After dropping his father off on the bed, he went to the bathroom and knocked Sam’s fumbling fingers out of the way before deftly doing the tie himself. Sam just stared at his brother the whole time with a wave of emotions simmering under his own stony expression.

“What?” Dean snapped. He already knew what Sam was going to say and it made him defensive.

“You know what,” Sam shot back. Dean finished with the tie and stepped back, crossing his arms. Sam was wearing one of Dean’s old suits which had originally been one of John’s old suits, and it was clearly too short. His ankles and wrists were visible, and he couldn’t button the jacket. But it was Sam’s words that caught his attention. “Dad didn’t come home last night.”

“He was at the roadhouse. Ellen took care of him. He was fine.”

“Well, we didn’t know that!” Sam’s tone was angry but his eyes were wide like an animal’s that had been caught in a trap. “What if something happened to him? I’m so sick and tired of constantly worrying about him – he should worry about us for once in his life!”

“He does. Why do you think he drinks so much, Sammy?” Dean wanted to end the argument there so he walked out of the bathroom and into their shared bedroom to change, but his brother simply followed him.

“No, no,” Sam was shaking his head. “This is because of mom. If he really was worried about us, he would have tried to take care of us, or at least found someone more capable like the Harvelles. This is…this is…”

“This is reality, Sam.” Dean didn’t have another suit, so he just pulled off his jacket and switched out his ratty flannel for a cleaner shirt, tucking it into his jeans. He even managed to dig out an old container of hair gel from the dresser and ran some through his hair. “If you wanna be mad at someone, get mad at the Host. This is all on them.”

“Believe me, I have enough anger to go around.”

“Fine. Then let it motivate you to go get dad ready. We’ve gotta be at the square in twenty minutes.”

“Dean.”

“What?” He looked up and was surprised to find fear on Sam’s face. “Hey,” Dean tried to soften his mouth into a smile. “Don’t you worry, little brother. We’re coming back home tonight.” 

“Yeah, I know,” Sam nodded, more to himself than Dean. “I know.”

 

Walking through town was a nightmare. The streets, which had been deserted in the early morning, were now packed with people heading to the square. Dean found himself jostled from all sides but he powered on with his hands clasped around his father’s and brother’s shoulders. In the crowd he spotted Jo and Ash walking with Ellen. Their father had died in the same factory fire that had taken Dean’s mother. He caught Jo’s eye and flashed that shit-eating grin she hated, which pulled a reluctant smile out of her, but he looked away as her eyes fell on John.

Attendance was mandatory and failure to show up meant certain public punishment, which was why Dean dragged his family to the sign in table sitting at the entrance to the town square and triple checked their signatures on the list before towing them into the square. It was the largest open space in the district, with stone streets and a fountain in the center. Shops lined the perimeter, all closed now of course, and at the north end was a temporary stage. Cameramen perched on the tops of stores with their equipment so that the whole event could be nationally televised. Dean fought the urge to step in front of Sam every time a camera’s gaze swept over his brother.

As they moved further into the square, Halo guards appeared to herd them into their designated roped-off areas. Children twelve and under were exempt from the reaping, and they had their own area to stand in. Then every consecutive age group spanning ten years were put together. Sam, at twenty-two, fell under the thirteen-to-twenty-two year olds group, and after a last glance at Dean, he broke away and went to stand with his section. Dean was forced away from his father and toward the twenty-three-to-thirty-two year olds. Jo and Ash materialized beside him after a moment, and Jo’s icy hand found his. Her hands always went cold when she was anxious.

After a chaotic half hour, everyone was finally in place, and the crowd turned its collective gaze to the stage as the lights came on, illuminating the people already seated on it. From where he stood, Dean could just make out the mayor of District 12 and Naomi, the district escort to the Games. She, just like all Capitol citizens, was so self-righteous and pretentious, she didn’t even have a last name.

A third chair also sat on the stage to the mayor’s right, but it was empty. Typical. The seat was supposed to be filled by the previous district victor of the Games, Bobby Singer. 12 only had one living victor, which said a lot. And the one that they did have was probably lying in a ditch somewhere, hammered out of his mind. The mayor kept glancing at the chair with shame while Naomi just looked annoyed. She finally stood after a minute of irritation, and as she approached the microphone, a hush fell over the crowd. Even the Halos guarding the perimeter were silent.

“Hello, my friends,” she beamed, and it was like staring into the face of a smiling crocodile. She was too shiny in her suit and meticulous bun, too pompous, too sugary sweet. Dean figured if he ever got the chance, he would give her a swift kick to the backside.

She delivered the same speech that was given every year at every district – the polished and embellished history of Paradise. In the Capitol’s version, Paradise was the result of a crucible effect; the country formerly known as the United States had been so overrun with corruption and sin that it eventually reached a boiling point, inducing inevitable change. And change came in the form of new leadership. They were the country’s saviors, its angels, and they were called the Heavenly Host. They swooped in at the nick of time and rescued the country from collapse, installing much needed law and order – which included the Hunter Games, a televised fight to the death which symbolized the Host hunting down the evil that threatened America. It was a tribute to their heroicness, it was a sacrifice made in remembrance of darker days.

It was total bullshit.   

Here’s how it really went down. At the turn of the century, the country really had been going to crap – the economy was tanking, an endemic called Croatoan virus had just broken out that caused people to have violent psychotic breaks, and the government had shut down, plunging the U.S. into anarchy. But what caused the government shut down in the first place was infiltration – a snake in the garden. The snake’s name was Nick Morningstar, an alias no doubt, and he was the secret leader of an extremist group called the Heavenly Host. They were religious zealots that preached warnings of an impending apocalypse caused by the sins of mankind. Using nothing more than his silver tongue, Nick talked his way into power with the use of religious propaganda and false promises. But the thing was, people were so desperate for a regime change, for salvation, that they accepted the Host’s messages and actually supported their rise. Unfortunately, once the group took over, the change they brought wasn’t so ideal. Hence the decimated population, the scattered and poverty-stricken districts. The Games.

The speech ended with another coy smile from Naomi, and then she grandly announced, “And now, it’s time for the main event—”

At that exact moment, Bobby Singer emerged from the throng of people in a raucous, drunken stupor, looking extremely grubby in a tattered t-shirt and baseball cap. He managed to haul himself onto the stage and planted a kiss on a mortified Naomi’s cheek before collapsing in his chair. Even from here, Dean could smell the liquor in him.

Naomi adjusted her skirt with flustered motions as she made her way over to the giant glass bowl resting in the middle of the stage. In it were thousands of names written on slips of paper, and every citizen of District 12 over the age twelve and under eighty had his or her name in there at least once. Dean himself had seventeen slips of paper in there serving as his death warrant. Two names would be drawn, of any gender and acceptable age, and those two people would instantly find their days numbered. Dean found himself squeezing Jo’s hand so hard he must have been cutting off her circulation, but she didn’t pull away, only edged closer in horrible anticipation.

There was pin drop silence as everyone watched Naomi carefully fish out a name from the bowl. She made a big show of digging deep down into the pile, and the whole time she sifted around, Dean’s heart was pounding in his chest and with every beat he thought to himself, _Not me, not me, for the love of god, not me…_

Naomi finally pulled out a slip, crossed back to the mic, unfolded the paper with slow and deliberate fingers, and in a cool voice read the name. And it wasn’t Dean.

It was Sam Winchester. 

**Author's Note:**

> Do not be discouraged by the lack of Cas in this chapter, friends. From chapter 2 on, it's DESTIEL TIME.


End file.
